Lesbians book series in reading order

by Ellen Hart

by Tamsyn Muir

Ellen Hart writes mystery novels around two recurring sleuths, Jane Lawless and Sophie Greenway. Women detectives, Minneapolis, restaurateurs and lesbian characters are standing subjects, and culinary detail runs through the books: Hart worked as a professional chef for 14 years. The catalogue holds 35 titles published between 1989 and 2020, opening with Hallowed Murder (1989) and continuing through Vital Lies (1991), Stage Fright (1992), A Small Sacrifice (1994) and The Oldest Sin (1995). In a Midnight Wood (2020) is the last catalogued book.

Ali Vali writes lesbian romance and romantic suspense, with 41 books catalogued from All It Took Was You (2001) to Journey to Amazonia (2026). Cain Casey is a series, and The Devil Inside (2006), The Devil Unleashed (2006) and Deal with the Devil (2008) are among the listed titles. Genesis Clan, Harry & Desi's, Sept Savoie & Keegan Blanchard, Blue Skies and Waves are other series. Subjects include New Orleans, organized crime, women lawyers, restaurateurs and lesbian police officers.

Carsen Taite writes lesbian romance and romantic suspense, with subject records naming women lawyers, women bounty hunters, murder trials and missing persons. The catalogue lists 35 books from Truelesbianlove.com (2008) to Trial Run (2024). Series include Luca Bennett Bounty Hunter, Lone Star Law, Courting Danger and Crime & Defense.

Rita Mae Brown

76 books• 7 series

Rita Mae Brown's catalogue reaches 77 books and splits between literary fiction and mystery. Rubyfruit Jungle (1973) belongs to the early work, catalogued under lesbian fiction. The Mrs. Murphy mysteries pair Harry Haristeen with her cats, and the Sister Jane books follow Jane Arnold and fox hunting. Runnymede is a third sequence. Clawed and Dangerous is the newest title, and Pawsible Suspects is scheduled for 2027.

Melissa Brayden writes sapphic contemporary romance. Waiting in the Wings (2011) opens a catalogue of 30 books that reaches Make Your Move (2026). Four series carry the name: Seven Shores, Soho Loft, Tangle Valley and Heart Block. Actors, the theatre, single mothers and San Diego recur as subjects.

Emma Donoghue

31 books• 5 series

Emma Donoghue is an Irish Canadian novelist, playwright, screenwriter and literary historian, born in October 1969. Room (2010) became an international best-seller and a Booker Prize finalist, and Donoghue's screenplay of the film version earned an Academy Award nomination. Hood (1995) won the Stonewall Book Award, and Slammerkin took the Ferro-Grumley Award for Lesbian Fiction. In 2025 Donoghue received the Alice B Readers Award. The catalogue holds 31 books, from Passions Between Women (1993) to The Paris Express (2025), including the Lotterys Plus One series.

Georgia Beers is an American author of lesbian romance with 52 books catalogued from Turning the Page (2001) to Back to Square One (2026). Fresh Tracks (2006) won the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Romance. Beers's books have taken 13 Goldie Awards from the Golden Crown Literary Society, six of them for romance. Thy Neighbor's Wife (2003), Mine (2007), Finding Home (2008) and 96 Hours (2013) are among the other titles. Puppy Love Romance and Swizzle Stick Romance are named series, and dogs appear in the subjects.

Rebekah Weatherspoon writes romance with heroines who are Black, plus-size, disabled and LGBTQ, and founded the website WOC in Romance. Soul to Keep won a Lambda Literary Award in 2017, and Xeni was honoured at the first Ripped Bodice Awards for Excellence in Romance Fiction. Better Off Red (2011) opens a catalogue of 26 titles reaching Summer Official (2026), across series including the Vampire Sorority Sisters, the Fit trilogy, Sugar Baby, Beards & Bondage and the Cowboys of California.

Nicola Griffith

13 books• 4 series

Nicola Griffith, born 30 September 1960, is a British American novelist, essayist and teacher. Awards include the Nebula, the James Tiptree, Jr. Award, the World Fantasy Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, two Washington State Book Awards and six Lambda Literary Awards. Griffith joined the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 2024 and was named the 41st Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master in 2025. The catalogue has 13 books from Ammonite (1992) to She is Here (2026), including Hild (2013) and the Aud Torvingen and Light of the World series.

Val McDermid

55 books• 13 series

Val McDermid, born 4 June 1955, is a Scottish crime writer whose work falls under the Tartan Noir label and is noted for unflinching violence. The catalogue runs to 55 books, from Report For Murder (1987) to Winter: The Story of a Season (2026). McDermid's best-known novels follow clinical psychologist Tony Hill and his colleagues in the police, a sequence televised as Wire in the Blood from 2002 to 2008. Inspector Karen Pirie, Lindsay Gordon and Kate Brannigan are the other named series. Awards on record include the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger and the Cartier Diamond Dagger.

Tamsyn Muir

12 books• 2 series

Tamsyn Muir, a New Zealand fantasy, science fiction and horror author born on 14 March 1985, is best known for The Locked Tomb, a science fantasy novel series. Gideon the Ninth (2019), the first Muir novel, won the 2020 Locus Award, and Harrow the Ninth followed in 2020. The catalogue lists 12 books from The House that Made the Sixteen Loops of Time (2011) to The Unwanted Guest (2023). Subject tags include necromancy, lesbians, dark fantasy and LGBTQ science fiction and fantasy, and Princess Floralinda and the Forty-Flight Tower is also listed.

Jacqueline Woodson

42 books• 7 series

Jacqueline Woodson, born February 12, 1963, is an American writer of books for children and young adolescents. Miracle's Boys is Woodson's best-known book, and Brown Girl Dreaming, After Tupac and D Foster, Feathers and Show Way each earned a Newbery Honor. Woodson was Young People's Poet Laureate from 2015 to 2017 and National Ambassador for Young People's Literature for 2018 to 2019. Another Brooklyn reached the 2016 National Book Award shortlist for fiction. Honors include the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award (2018), the Hans Christian Andersen Award (2020) and a 2020 MacArthur Fellowship. The catalogue lists 42 books from Last Summer with Maizon (1990) to Remember Us (2023), with subjects such as African Americans, friendship, family life, race relations and grief.

Zane writes erotic fiction centred on African American women and their relationships. The catalogue holds 29 books published between The Hot Box (1996) and Vengeance in 2015, among them Addicted (1998), The Sex Chronicles (2000) and the Chocolate Flava anthologies. Sisters, college life and sexual behaviour run through the subjects, and nothing later than 2015 is catalogued.

Lawrence Block

262 books• 22 series

Lawrence Block, born June 24, 1938, is an American writer of crime, mystery and suspense fiction whose career spans more than half a century. Block is best known for two long-running series set in New York: Matthew Scudder, a recovering alcoholic private investigator, and Bernie Rhodenbarr, a gentleman burglar. The Mystery Writers of America named Block a Grand Master in 1994. The catalogue begins in 1958 with Carla and A Fire At Night and reaches Writing Drunk, Writing Sober in 2025. John Keller, Evan Tanner, Kit Tolliver and Ehrengraf for the Defense are further series, and books written as Jill Emerson form another.

Josephine Tey wrote detective fiction in the English traditional mode, with Inspector Alan Grant investigating across most of the novels. The Man in the Queue (1929), also published as Killer in the Crowd, introduces Grant, and A Shilling for Candles follows. Tey also wrote plays as Gordon Daviot, among them Richard of Bordeaux and Claverhouse, and the novel Kif: An Unvarnished History (1929). Nineteen titles make up the catalogue, which is complete.

Andrea Gibson

9 books• 1 series

Andrea Gibson (August 13, 1975 – July 14, 2025) was an American poet and activist, appointed Poet Laureate of Colorado in 2023. Gibson's poems take up gender norms, politics, social justice, LGBTQ subjects, life and mortality. The catalogue holds 9 books from Pole Dancing to Gospel Hymns (2008) to You Better Be Lightning (2021), including The Madness Vase (2011), Pansy (2015), Take Me With You (2018) and Lord of the Butterflies (2020). Poetry, American poetry and lesbian poets are among the subjects.

Armistead Maupin

17 books• 2 series

Armistead Maupin, an American writer born May 13, 1944, is noted for Tales of the City, a series of novels set in San Francisco. The catalogue lists 17 Maupin books from 1978 to 2024. Tales of the City and More Tales of the City are both dated 1978, followed by Further Tales of the City (1982), Babycakes (1984), Significant Others (1987) and Sure of You (1989). Maybe the Moon (1992) and The Night Listener (2000) are also listed. Subjects include gay men, lesbians and city life in San Francisco. Mona of the Manor (2024) is the newest title.

Radclyffe is the name used by Dr. Lenora Ruth Barot, born in 1950, an American author of lesbian romance, paranormal romance, erotica and mystery who has also written short stories and fan fiction and edited anthologies. Radclyffe sits in the Saints and Sinners Literary Hall of Fame and founded the Golden Crown Literary Society. The catalogue records 104 books, from Above All, Honor (2001) to Code Call (2026). Provincetown Tales, Midnight Hunters, In Deep Waters and A PMC Hospital Romance are among the series listed, with surgeons, coroners, forensic pathologists and women fire fighters among the recorded subjects.

Sarah Waters

6 books

Sarah Waters is a Welsh novelist whose fiction places lesbian protagonists in Victorian society. Tipping the Velvet (1998) and Fingersmith (2002) are the best known of the six novels; the BBC adapted both as television mini-series, in 2002 and 2005, and Fingersmith became the South Korean film The Handmaiden in 2016. The catalogue also holds Affinity (1999), The Night Watch (2006), The Little Stranger (2009) and The Paying Guests (2014). Spiritualism, prisons and social history run through the work.

Tanith Lee

132 books• 22 series

Tanith Lee was a British writer of science fiction and fantasy, born 19 September 1947, who died on 24 May 2015, leaving more than 90 novels and 300 short stories. Death's Master (1980) made Lee the first woman to take the British Fantasy Award for Best Novel, the August Derleth Award, and Lee also won several World Fantasy Awards plus lifetime achievement honours from the World Fantasy and Bram Stoker awards. Lee wrote the Blake's 7 episodes "Sand" and "Sarcophagus", poems, and the picture book Animal Castle (1972). The catalogue lists 132 books from The Betrothed (1968) to The Earth is Flat (2023), including The Birthgrave (1975) and Don't Bite the Sun (1976). Series include Tales from the Flat Earth, Secret Books of Paradys, Claidi Journals, Blood Opera and Piratica.

Donald E. Westlake

127 books• 11 series

Donald E. Westlake (July 12, 1933 to December 31, 2008) was an American writer credited with more than one hundred novels and non-fiction books. Crime fiction was Westlake's specialty, comic capers above all, with occasional science fiction. Westlake created two professional criminals with long-running series: the hardboiled Parker, published under the pen name Richard Stark, and John Dortmunder, the lead of a more humorous series. Westlake won the Edgar Award three times. The catalogue holds 127 Westlake books from 1959 to 2022, and other listings include Alan Grofield, Sam Holt and the Mitch Tobin books written as Tucker Coe.

Jeanette Winterson

28 books• 4 series

Jeanette Winterson, born 27 August 1959, is an English author who also broadcasts and teaches creative writing. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (1985), Winterson's first book, is a semi-autobiographical novel about a lesbian girl raised in an English Pentecostal community. Later novels take up gender and sexual identity, and then the relationship between people and technology. Winterson's awards include a Whitbread Prize for a First Novel, a BAFTA for Best Drama, the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, the E. M. Forster Award, the St. Louis Literary Award and two Lambda Literary Awards. The catalogue lists 28 books, reaching One Aladdin Two Lamps (2026), with translations in almost 20 languages.

Kalynn Bayron writes fairy tale retellings and sapphic romance, with LGBTQIA themes in the subject tags. Cinderella Is Dead (2020) and This Poison Heart (2021) are among the catalogued titles, followed by The Vanquishers (2022), This Wicked Fate (2022) and You're Not Supposed to Die Tonight (2023). Vanquishers, Six Points of Light and This Poison Heart are the series, and Tell the Ghosts I'm Gone (2026) is the newest title.

Alexandria Bellefleur is an award-winning USA Today bestselling author of contemporary romance, often featuring grumpy characters and the sunshine characters who win them over. The debut novel, Written in the Stars (2020), won a 2021 Lambda Literary Award and a 2020 Ripped Bodice Award for Excellence in Romantic Fiction. Hang the Moon (2021), Count Your Lucky Stars (2022), The Fiancée Farce (2023) and Truly, Madly, Deeply (2024) followed, and If These Walls Could Talk (2026) is the newest title. LGBTQ romance and romantic comedy appear in the subjects.